Genital herpes is apparently more common in the United States than had been previously believed, with as many as 31 million Americans infected with the painful venereal disease, researchers reported last week. Based on blood samples from 4,201 Americans between 1976 and 1980, a team from the Centers for Disease Control and Atlanta's Emory University found that 16.4% of individuals between the ages of 15 and 74 were infected with herpes simplex type 2.

Despite extensive knowledge of the primary routes of AIDS transmission, teen-agers are continuing to engage in activities that put them at risk for contracting the deadly disease, according to reports released Thursday. The federal Centers for Disease Control and the public-interest Children's Defense Fund urged that education and prevention programs be started as quickly as possible to discourage dangerous behavior by adolescents that may place them at continued risk for the disease.

New findings bolster the suspicion that a type of herpes virus that does not appear to cause any disease in healthy adults may speed the progression of AIDS, researchers at the National Institutes of Health reported last week. Virologist Robert Gallo, who is credited with co-discovery of the AIDS virus, said his latest work supports his theory that human herpes virus 6, or HHV-6, may promote the development of AIDS.

October 24, 1988 | Anne C. Roark, Times staff writer Anne C. Roark reports from San Francisco at the American Academy of Pediatrics annual meeting

A silent epidemic, one that often goes undetected and untreated, is rendering adolescent girls in America sterile, according to Mary Ann Shafer, associate professor of pediatrics at UC San Francisco. The disease is known as chlamydia and it is now thought to be the most common sexually transmitted disease among adolescents, occuring in 8% to 25% of sexually active girls and 9% of sexually active boys.

The much-touted reversal in the 1980s of the sexual revolution of the '60s and early '70s does not seem to have materialized. Today AIDS is slowly spreading among heterosexuals, and other sexually transmitted diseases--gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, herpes and papilloma virus, to name a few--have become major public health problems. Yet researchers are finding that heterosexual habits are changing slowly, if at all. And that means increased risk.

Costa Mesa-based ICN Biomedicals Inc. said Wednesday that it has received authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market a new test for the diagnosis of chlamydia, the obscure but perhaps most common sexually transmitted disease in the nation. ICN Biomedicals, a majority-owned subsidiary of ICN Pharmaceuticals, said it will begin selling the test kits to physicians in the United States by the end of the year.

At a time when the AIDS epidemic is spreading faster and farther than many researchers had expected, the nation's most powerful information medium discourages advertising about one of the most effective methods known to prevent the disease's transmission.

Responding to an outbreak of 52 syphilis cases among predominantly gay men with multiple sexual partners, the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors approved a $1.5-million emergency campaign Tuesday to combat the disease and promote safe sex. As part of its plan, the county health department will distribute 500,000 condoms to clinics and community groups in the areas with the highest risk and will launch an ad campaign.

The physician in charge of disease control programs for Los Angeles County has accused county health administrators of concentrating on public relations "puffery" while botching efforts to contain epidemics. In a scorching attack on the county Department of Health Services, veteran epidemiologist Dr. Shirley Fannin charges that for two straight years health officials fumbled programs to control venereal disease outbreaks.